Influence of the Geographical Environment on the Deported Chechens in the Places of Special Settlements

Abstract

It was extremely difficult for the deported peoples to adapt to new natural conditions, and to a new ethnic environment, and to a new humiliating situation. K.D. Ushinsky wrote that the influence of natural conditions on people is so powerful that the destruction of these conditions (and in this case separation) torments a person with painful homesickness. A number of government regulations established a cruel special regime. Settlers scattered in small groups from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan did not have the opportunity to keep in touch with each other. In order to survive physically and morally, the settlers had to prove their innocence every minute of their existence. Adaptation in new geographic and climatic conditions, different from historical ones, had a dominating and depressing effect on the moral and psychological state of people.